3. Will the Welsh Government scrap the public sector pay cap? (OAQ51243)

Dirprwy Lywydd, the pay cap imposed by the UK Government should end, and the UK Government, not Welsh public services, must find the money to do so.

Well, the Scottish Government, last month, in its programme for government, has committed to scrapping the pay cap for NHS staff, for teachers, for civil servants and other hard-pressed public sector workers. Responding to this, the interim leader of the Labour Party in Scotland, Alex Rowley, said:

This SNP u-turn is long overdue, and it is welcome to see that’ finance secretary

Derek Mackay has finally followed Labour’s lead to end the pay cap.’

Now, Labour are calling for the Westminster Government to scrap the pay cap. They’re applauding the Scottish Government in scrapping the pay cap. But, in the case of the one Government where they could end it themselves, they’re refusing to do so. Isn’t this rank hypocrisy of the worst kind?

What it is, Dirprwy Lywydd, is a reflection of the different levers available to different Governments in parts of the United Kingdom. I am meeting Derek Mackay tomorrow. I look forward to discussing with him how far he has got in his plans. We don’t have much detail yet, either of the extent to which the pay cap will be able to be lifted in Scotland, or how he intends to pay for that, but his ability to raise funds is of a different order to ours, and he does not have to make some of the arguments I have to make about the UK Government’s impact on our budget. So, I look forward to discussing it further with him, but the difference lies not in the sense that Adam Price outlined, but in the different set of tools and capacities that different parts of the United Kingdom have to take action in this area.

Public sector workers in Wales deserve a pay rise. Public sector workers in Wales need a pay rise. They’re still paying the price for the casino capitalist bankers who took us into an economic crisis. Does the Cabinet Secretary agree that Westminster needs to end austerity and increase the budget allocation to Wales so that we will be able to give workers in Wales the well-deserved pay rise that they really should get?

Dirprwy Lywydd, I entirely agree with what Mike Hedges has said. Of course public sector workers in Wales deserve to be properly paid for the work that they do, and he’s absolutely right to point to the fact that people who struggle on on wages that have not been increased year on year ask how it turned out that they were responsible for the banking crisis of a decade ago while those who were responsible for it appear to have to shoulder a good deal less of that burden. Mike is absolutely right as well, Dirprwy Lywydd, in saying that, just as the pay cap in Wales should be lifted, then the responsibility for paying for lifting that cap, for that policy in the first place, must come from those who are responsible for it. They must provide the money. The First Minister has provided a guarantee that if a cap is raised in November’s budget and the money flows to Wales to lift that cap, every penny of that will be devoted to that purpose.

Whilst we in UKIP recognise that the public sector pay cap must be brought to an end and all employees, not just a chosen few, should be paid commensurate with their work grades, we also believe that there are huge opportunities to avoid the high levels of waste in some parts of the public sector. Bureaucracy and waste are still prevalent in the NHS and, in some instances, could be said to be at epidemic levels. Does the Cabinet Secretary agree that only by reducing the huge levels of bureaucratic staffing endemic in our public services will we be able to fund true front-line staff, with salaries commensurate with their responsibilities, and this on a sustainable basis?

I don’t agree with the point the Member has made in the way that he makes it. I would have agreed with him had he simply said that there are always efficiencies that can be made and ought to be made in public services. That is undoubtedly true. To go on, though, to make some far more sweeping assertion that public services are bloated bureaucracies just flies in the face of what we know about them. Many of our public services have very hollowed-out centres, have reduced the capacity that they have at the centre to run very large and very complex organisations to what I regard as the minimum sustainable level. Does that mean that they should not go on trying to make sure that money is squeezed out and put in the front line? No, it doesn’t. Should that money go to people who are providing front-line services? Yes, it should. Should that money be directed to a chosen few, as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has suggested? No, it shouldn’t.